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Saturday, September 28, 2013

Sunday Story - amazing writers

This past week I volunteered for Auntie Duty. I have a 6 year old nephew and an almost 2 year old niece. Their dad was in hospital, so I went to help out their mum, so my Auntie duty wasn't solo.

I took up two stories to edit, my iPad to write, a notepad, two books and of course my iPad is full of ebooks. I didn't expect to do ALL of this, I like to have more than I need, just in case.

What did I manage? I wrote about 3 paragraphs and read a couple of pages. Yep, in a week. Then thankfully I caught the train home and spent those hours writing and reading and began to feel sane.

During this week, I had lots of time to wonder, how the hell do mothers write? RWAus is full of writing mums. Some of these writing Mums are published and prolific. How does that fit in to their life?

I could hardly string a sentence together when speaking, let alone writing! I'd start saying something and then there'd be some interruption - someone needed to speak, eat, drink, go to the toilet, the dog needed attention, or disciplining, or if the dog didn't the kids did, or their mother. It didn't stop until I fell into bed. Even my dreams stopped, interrupted by a sleep-talking nephew, or a coughing kid, a screaming one, one who turned and twisted in bed and beat me with his feet. Seriously, never do Auntie duty on a trundle bed no matter how much you love your nephew who begs and pleads for you to 'sleep over'.

So, I have returned to my quiet existence with a plan to be more productive, and enjoy my blessed silence. If mothers can write, and publish, then I don't have any excuse except my own slackness. Time to get organised and focus on output...until I find myself volunteering for Auntie Duty again!

If you're a mum who manages to write ... I take my hat off to you! You deserve a medal :)

2 comments:

I'll take your medal!I always say JK Rowling was lucky to have that baby young enough to be in a pram and cruisy enough that she could take her computer to that cafe and the baby would fall asleep and she could write, write, write. How brilliant for her that the book happened to be Harry Potter!I don't know how mothers do it. I struggle so much to find good quality writing time - and to have people around me who understand that it isn't just a 'hobby' to me (even since I've received a royalty cheque... it's still just a hobby).Sigh. And it's not just the mothering, it's the partnering or wifing as well (that's wife-ing, not wi-fi-ing) ... I could go on forever.Good on you for doing Auntie Duty - I bet you rocked.I'm having my discussion here because I feel like I've got more to contribute, than on the homo labels of your Friday post.I admire your passion though Cate - for having these opinions and airing them here... I think I go through my life in an apathetic state sometimes, and the big issues of the world, they just happen around me and I just keep swimmin (as Dory would say)...Now ask me about cricket and I'll have an opinion!

I'm happy to hand you a medal, Lily. But yes, I struggle with the wifiness and fitting in writing but it seems we all have that problem. I wonder if male writers also struggle with finding time/being taken seriously.

I'm not sure I'm passionate about lots of these things, but it like discussing and thinking and hearing other opinions and thinking about them. That makes life interesting for me.

I often struggle to find a topic to write about, but I've got into a bit of a habit now of reading the newspaper or blogs and taking ideas or themes and scribbling them for my blog.

I like chatting away here - probably because I work at home by myself, so this gets some of my words out so I don't drive Mr E bats!

A Little About Me

I have a new ebook out on 4 August. Team Player is published by Escape Publishing and is a MMF story.

I write erotic stories, usually in first person. I think it's an important aspect of romance that we only ever see the relationship from one viewpoint. I wanted to explore that with my stories. I hope you enjoy them.

Please feel free to contact me for a chat. My email is cate@cateellink.com